The majorUS cable broadband provider ComCast is now experimenting with suspending users that go over what they call acceptable usage. Unlike many broadband providers that cap...

Read the full article here: [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/6718-Cable-ISP-ComCast-suspends-around-240000-users-for-over-usage.html](http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/6718-Cable-ISP-ComCast-suspends-around-240000-users-for-over-usage.html)
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I haven't been reading into these broadband bandwidth limits, but right now most of what i hear is cable internet. I know some people who have ATT's dsl and they have a limit, but is there any other ISP on the verge of creating one. Say Earthlink?

From this article here: http://news.com.com/2100-1034_3-5079624.html - it sounds like SBC/Yahoo doesn't plan on capping nor does Verizon. "Telephone companies offering DSL service in the United States say they have no limits in place for their users, unlike Canadian, British or Australian counterparts that routinely cap their subscribers' usage." edit: The only downside to DSL...doesn't the latency for gaming suck? I've not used it, but that's what I've heard numerous places.[edited by thenapalm on 24.09.2003 04:18]

If my ISP suspended my service for exceeding some arbitrary limit that they kept secret, I'd be signing up with a new ISP the next friggin day. They can take their service (or lack thereof) and shove it up their asses. I currently use DSL, and my downstream speed is over 1Mb/s, and I have no caps. Why change to shitty Comcast?

There's another, possibly unstated reason, for excess bandwidth usage, and that's spamming. At least 10-15% of the spam being sent out in the USA is coming from comcast accounts. At least the stuff I get is. comcast apparently has no restrictions on email acounts, so this may be one way to limit spammers. Just a thought.

In Canada a while ago Bell Sympatico imposed caps of 5GB per month up and down. They then changed to 10total (instead of specifying 5up 5dn). Their fees for extra usage were crazy and many many users switched from Sympatico. Some after recieving huge bills (with many pending court cases). This is almost worse though. With Sympatico you knew what you were allowed and simply gave sympatico the royal boot (in doing so I also saved a fair bit of money too). But I think it is great. I simply wish to fully extend their logic. Month 1. Top 1% are suspended. Hence they are now only 99% of their original size. Month 2. Top 1% are suspended but the original 1% are gone so 98%. (okay a little more but I am being to lazy to round). After a while they will loose all customers! After all when grandma doing 5megs a month falls into that top 1% cause everyone else is gone she will be suspended:d I say they be allowed to continue as long as they go to the logical conclusion.

Well to be honest they wont care if they lost that top 1%. They plan to. That top 1% is the least profitable for them as an ISP and is probably costing them more than it is making them. The whole thing is an averaging game - some users with broadband barely download anything and make the ISP a large profit as they dont have to pay any bandwidth bills. Others go way over what they pay for in their monthly bill so the ISP loses money on them but they dont care (didn't care) because it was still averaging out as a profit due to the users who barely use anything. By doing this they are just making their profit EVEN BIGGER - not less - as the only customers they are keeping are ones who are making them a pure profit - they are reducing what they have to pay for bandwidth used. And also - as for the 1% every month going = bankrupt company idea - that's not true - it'll be 1% go the first time - then 1% of that REMAINING 99% that then go. - It's exponential and will never reach 0 even in a billion years.

I live in North Carolina, US and have had BellSouth's FastAccess DSL (1.5 Mbps downstream and 256Kbps upstream) for 3 years. It' s a dynamic IP address, but I'm on about 7-8 days at a time, before a glitch (?) forces me to redial. No bandwidth limits at all. Tech support has been good too. I have been 100% satisfied.

I called Comcast about this and they said they didn't know anything about suspending 240,000 users. When asked about the up/download limits, they pointed me to their abuse policy which didn't give any specifics but just mentioned exceeding acceptable limits. I think the whole thing is kind of hokey. If they want to do something like this, they need to transition into it by at least warning their customers that they have been targeted for excessive use and tell them what the limit they exceeded is. The person I talked to didn't even know what limit I was talking about. She said that customers have been suspended for exceeding the down and upload speed limits by using some kind of bandwidth stretching boxes... I've uploaded and downloaded over 200 gig this month with TWC and haven't heard any complaints from them.

My teamspeak server exceed the 5gb per month limit imposed on some of you. I think that low of limit is ridiculous but I do see a problem with the amounts some people use especially those that leave Kazaa running all the damn time and are sharing 5000 files.

If your gonna cap people you have to tell them what their limit is so they monitor it. The only reason they're not telling people what their limit is, is to make money. They tell people there is no limit so everyone jumps on the bandwagon then when people use to much they kick them off, which is dumb because sense the top 1 percent is suspended now, next month the 2 percent will be the highest users and it will just trickle down to the point where the guy that just checks his email is in the top one percent so they kick him off. Ok probably not but it's still just plain rude. The only reason they don't tell you what your limit is, is because they don't want people to choose another service because they have a limit. Basically it's false advertising. Either give a limit or don't. Or burn in hell. Whatever.[edited by chsbiking on 24.09.2003 19:18]